I watched Al Teague do his 409.986 in 91. Many years of developement, allowed Al take a motorcycle streamliner to the fastest single engine record on the salt. I was also at the start line when a streamline went by at 300mph because of a blown out chute line ( it was the last meet of the opposite returns). And I have seen, many times, the spin of George Poteet Speed Demon on U tube. Streamliners are the fastest of the fast, and being the fastest the speeds and aero work together until the limits of one or the other is reached. The designs have gone from the bumps of motors and wheels to the enclosed boxes and needles, yet computer traction controls and rpm limiters do thier best to keep the wheels on the salt, four patches the size of post cards, or for the youth each tires has a foot print of your cell phone, and is just as smooth.
Cool piece of history right there. I used to have a bunch of them. Sadly, they were scattered to the 4 winds years ago. Too busy racing in the 60's to think about things like that.
I had the honor of photo documenting a couple of historic Bonneville Salt Flat cars not long ago, one being Chet Herbert's "Beast II", and the other, the 1947 King & Henson belly tanker. Both were donated to the NHRA museum earlier this year. The K&H belly tanker will not be restored, but rather, be displayed for historical and educational purposes. The "Beast II" will eventually be restored and put on display at NHRA museum as well. As I understand, the nose and tail were elongated later in it's life, but will be restored back to the short-nose configuration as seen in the photo in the header of this thread. Interesting enough, stickers on the cockpit show it running at Bonneville as late as 1992. There is an interesting 8-page article devoted the Chet Herbert in one of the Rodders Journals, but I dont have the volume number handy. All photos below were used and posted with permission.
There must have been some heavy drinking going on at the printers when they did that 1990 Bonneville sticker.
Less the bubbles, of course, I'd love to see those wheels on a c.1930 road-going car. What are those, 18x5? It could be the perspective but they look taller than 16".
There are so many considerations. Frontal area. Front-end lift. Rear-end lift. Lateral center-of-pressure in crosswinds. Etc. The Brits were maybe into the math on this before the war, and certainly a lot of the plane-builders might have gotten it, but those hotrodders either unable or unwilling to spend the $ to buy that expertise had to learn it from scratch and some did better than others.
Aerodynamics does not require a wind tunnel. Yarn tufts tell a lot. Easy to do but takes much trial and error.
In the Summer Bros' Golden Rod documentary, there is footage of them driving the streamliner around the test facility with such a setup. According to Fred Larsen, the Larsen-Cummins streamliner, which set records across a number of decades, was incredibly stable up to about 300 mph. He once told me, "at 275, I could sit back and read a magazine!" but as speeds increased, it got a little less stable, which could be expected. Back to the Golden Rod, you'll notice it's basically a toothpick in design, not a whole lot of downforce, etc. at play in the overall design, just skinny and sleek. The teardrop shape is a very aerodynamic design. As mentioned, look at the overall shape of a belly tank, tells you all you need to know. Same goes for the airfoil shape of most aircraft wings. Now, you take that same airfoil shape and rotate it slightly on its perpendicular axis and all of a sudden, you're generating either lift or downforce, just like an airplane's wing, which may affect the handling of said vehicle. Ever wonder why all modern cars look so similar? It's because they're designed to effectively be a streamliner of sort in order to maximize efficiency to meet the EPA, etc fuel economy mandates. There was a paper that was published that discussed the headlight design of the hideous Nissan Leaf and it had all to do with aerodynamics and streamlining to increase it's range due to the limited onboard battery power. The shape of the headlight helped to minimize drag past the a-pillar and side mirror.
Garlits said this streamliner designed by Jocko Johnson tended to lift around 180MPH and the body finally broke in half because of the downforce. But it looks slick as hell.
Ermie Irmmerso (Thunderbird Exhaust) had kept the plug for his streamliner body mold painted as a display piece. We had tried to buy it at his estate sale. Our $2500 max was nearly tripled. It was the first Streamliner to hit 300 mph. He had also built 2 cars that won "America's Most Beautiful Roadster" 3 times. The Petersen Museum snapped those up for beyond BIG money. https://journal.classiccars.com/media/2017/06/ambr_content.pdf
I found this article - https://www.hagerty.com/media/motor...neville-streamliners-lakesters-and-roadsters/ Different classification - Campbell's car was not a Streamliner - it had open wheels. It would be a Lakester today.
So if it wasn't timed by the SCTA, the records don't count? Really?? Someone better tell the FIA. Mick
Actually the Auto Club is the one who sanctioned early time trials, races, printed maps and even put up street signs. Ab Jenkins the guy who really put Bonneville on the map was fined by the Auto Club and his records not recognized because the Auto Club hadn't sanctioned the runs - they refused to send anyone to watch the runs at so desolate a place. https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/...g-mayor-who-made-bonneville-capital-of-speed/
from an old artwork post Hello, With the salt flat season coming up in the fall, if the water level falls and dries, it felt apropos to include one of our favorite builds and people we met while living in Long Beach. There have been many different streamliners in the history of Bonneville Salt Flats. But, at the time, multiple engine race cars were a rarity. When the design phase for this version was made public, we had to read all about it and possibily see it in our neighborhood speed shop. When Mickey Thompson Enterprises moved into Joe Mailliard’s old shop on Cota, we knew exactly where it was, since we had been going to that old shop at 1410 Cota. It was a short bicycle ride away and we were very familiar with that original shop. The shop was set up perfectly for all types of modifying hot rods and race cars. We could bicycle over there from our house in the Westside of Long Beach, if the 58 Impala was not around or available. We had gone over there with the 51 Oldsmobile sedan many times for parts and accessories, as well as our weekly fix of the Drag News paper. We had seen various Pontiac race cars and building phases as the M/T years rolled by. We got to know the manager, Jack Ewell, an old time drag racer, at the shop, when he became the manager. When we were partially finished with the 671 SBC set up for the 40 Willys coupe, we towed it over to show it in its stages and ask for some help in the design phases. Joe Mailliard's original shop at 1410 Cota Ave. But, when Joe Mailliard moved his shop closer into downtown Long Beach, near our high school, it was just as easy to drive a short distance to go to the new shop. After school it was on the way home. Jnaki When Mickey Thompson moved into the Westside of Long Beach shop, it was easily accessible to us. All in all, he expanded his shop to another larger unit a short block away and then finally, moved everything to Santa Fe Avenue, right next door to our favorite Italian Deli and Sandwich Shop. (Santa Fe Importers is still there in the same location.) We have always thought the streamliner was deep inside of the Cota Avenue garage shop. We never got to see it up close in that location. But, our plastic models were painted and detailed just like the real thing. YRMV old Friday Art This version was what we thought was the best looking. It was smooth and nothing stopped the flow of air from the ground up and over the top of the body/cab in the back. The squarish rear created less turbulence for a great design. The technology involved in the motor set up was amazing. During this time, he was always roaming around the whole dragstrip and was one of the friendliest people we got to know. Even for a couple of young teenagers, he had time to stop, say hello and told us some things we could possibly use for our build phases. Thanks, MT... YRMV
Apples and oranges - 2 separate sanctioning bodies with 2 different sets of rules and classifications.
That was the one I saw most often growing up in the 1960s, the Redding Redhead, by the Shasta Roadsters. It always had a premier spot in the annual show put on by the Shasta Roadsters. I admired the car, but as a teen, going to Bonneville was beyond my dreams. My sanctioned hot rod racing was limited to drags at the Redding Airport drag strip, which was a hundred miles from my home.
The Jalopy Journal
